Skip to main content

Patterns

             What you heard from me, keep as the pattern of sound teaching, with faith and love in Christ Jesus. Guard the good deposit that was entrusted to you—guard it with the help of the Holy Spirit who lives in us. (II Timothy 1:13-14)

          Worldview: a comprehensive conception or apprehension of the world, particularly from a specific standpoint. It represents the fundamental cognitive orientation of an individual or society, encompassing their knowledge, culture, and point of view. Additionally, it can be described as a philosophy of the universe and humanity's relation to it (Merriam-Webster Dictionary, online.)

          A worldview is or includes one’s knowledge, culture, and point of view, and it is one’s philosophy of the universe and our relation to it. As such, it is indistinguishable from one’s religion. This does not mean that one’s worldview is (by definition) the same as the established doctrines of one’s faith, because even though people profess to believe all that their religion teaches, we tend to have some points where we’re not really comfortable saying, “Yep, that’s absolutely right!” Worldviews are ultimately individual.

          What’s more, a worldview is only as good as its correlation to reality. Using a ridiculous example, having a worldview that American Bison are fluffy cows with which you can safely take selfies is not likely to end well. Similarly, selfies with cute, cuddly bear cubs on a trail somewhere. Worldviews worthy of our acceptance stay as close to reality as possible. Since wisdom involves dealing with what’s really real, one’s goal should be to have a worldview that is wise.

          One of the challenges of worldviews is internal consistency. This is a point on which we need to be careful. Sometimes, people begin with their worldview or their presupposition and judge someone else’s statement as being wrong because it is not consistent with the people’s. Some people claim that a Christian worldview is inconsistent with the Bible if the Christian eats ham. Acts 10 and 15, and several of the Epistles make it clear that the Jewish Law was not and should not be imposed on the Gentile Church as a monolithic whole.

          That being said, in today’s passage Paul told Timothy to keep what his teaching as a pattern for sound teaching. What Paul taught was consistent with what Jesus taught, and what Jesus taught was consistent with the morality of the Old Testament, if not with the every exhaustive detail. 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The List

              Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ,   through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand. And we boast in the hope of the glory of God. Not only so, but we also glory in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance;   perseverance, character; and character, hope. And hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us. (Romans 5:1-5)           Think about it. We have been justified. At least, we could be justified if we stopped insisting that our justification be based on our merits. We have peace with God, or could have peace if we stopped throwing temper tantrums. We have gained access into grace i...
Post a Comment
Read more

Meditations of the Heart

  May these words of my mouth and this meditation of my heart be pleasing in your sight, Lord, my Rock and my Redeemer. (Psalm19:14)           As I started writing this post, I noted that the meditations of my heart are all over the mental landscape, from a hub where eight superhighways come together to a lunar or nuclear landscape. Do you see my error? The moment I read the word meditation , I think about thoughts. But what’s described here is the meditations of our hearts ; our wills.           While the meditations of our minds may be all over the place, the meditations of our wills tend to be a little more stable by the time we are adults. We no longer tend to want to pursue the ten separate careers we did in any given day as children. Part of this is humble acceptance of reality. We come to understand that we can’t do it all. I think another part of it is disappointmen...
Post a Comment
Read more

Listen To Him

              The Lord your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among you, from your fellow Israelites. You must listen to him . (Deuteronomy 18:15)           Today, we switch from Jesus’ claims of “I am” to prophecies made about Him. My Bible platform is starting in Deuteronomy. I’d start in Genesis, where we would learn that the one who would save us would be a descendant of Eve (Genesis 3:15), of Noah (by default), Abram and Sara(Genesis 12:1-3). Isaac (Genesis 17:19), Jacob (Genesis 25:23), Judah (Genesis 29:8), and David (II Samuel 7:12-16). There were also references to a new covenant (Jer. 31:31-34; Ezek. 36:22-32). In addition, there were prophecies about when and where the prophet/Messiah would be born and what would happen to him.           Of course, naysayers will claim that Jesus’ life was retrofitted or reverse enginee...
Post a Comment
Read more